“We have no plans to build out Windows apps. We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8. If that changes, we would invest there, of course.”

While Yahoo has had a tumultuous last few years, one unit that has consistently been at the top of the heap is its sports news division. At the same time, NBC Sports has been getting a boost — even without the NHL’s help — ever since Comcast bought NBCUniversal. Apparently between Yahoo’s need to better leverage its media properties and NBC’s free agency after calling it quits with Microsoft the two have found common ground and struck a deal. Although both websites will continue to operate independently, expect multi-platform crossover between TV and internet, cross-promotion with links to NBC Sports Live Extra streams from within Yahoo, new made-for-the-internet video shows combining their assets and Yahoo’s fantasy sports will be the exclusive game for NBC’s Rotoworld site. Check after the break for the press release and a heads up on why even non-sports fans that pay for TV may need to keep an eye on this move.

We are in the post-PC era, and soon billions of consumers will be carrying around Internet-connected mobile devices for up to 16 hours a day. Mobile audiences have exploded as a result.

Mobile advertising should be a bonanza, similar to online advertising a decade ago. However, it has been a bit slow off the ground, and its growth trajectory is not clear cut.

In a new report from BI Intelligence on the mobile advertising ecosystem, we explain the complexities and fractures, and examine the central and dynamic roles played by mobile ad networks, demand side platforms, mobile ad exchanges, real-time bidding, agencies, brands, and new companies hoping to upend the traditional banner ad.

It’s no pipe dream: XCOR is busy building the Lynx, its suborbital commercial spacecraft, which will take off and land like a conventional plane, but offer a cruising speed of Mach 3.5, 62 miles above the ground.

As it moves toward its first test flights in early 2013, XCOR has built a full-scale mockup of the Lynx, which it brought to last week’s International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight, in New Mexico.

The design is not final yet, COO Andrew Nelson says. But it’s the best look yet at the craft that could make point to point travel in space a reality, and send passengers from New York to Tokyo in an hour and a half.

The ability to see maps in buildings and landscapes in 3D makes following along considerably easier than with just 2D. So researchers at the University of Washington have made generating 3D models of a given location dead simple using custom software and nothing more than a webcam timelapse video of the spot captured on a sunny day.

As the sun moves across the sky it creates ever-changing shadows on every surface—from a towering skyscraper’s silhouette on the ground, to subtle architectural details. And by analyzing timelapse footage filmed across an entire day, the software’s algorithm is able to extrapolate the shape and positions of every structure in frame.

To work its magic the program does need to know the exact position of the camera using GPS data so it can calculate how high the sun was in the sky, and the time of day for every single frame. But once a scene is processed it’s able to spit out a 3D model that could then be added to existing databases such as the one used by Google in its map app. So eventually anyone who knows how to point a camera and hit record can make a contribution for the area where they live. [Washington University via NewScientist]

Texas Instruments has made the startling announcement that it’s going to wind down its wildly successful smartphone and tablet business in favor of embedded systems. VP Greg Delagi told investors that the switch would create a more “stable” and “long-term business” than the cutthroat battles it’s faced in mobile. While, currently the world’s third biggest semiconductor company, it’s concerned about losing ground to players like Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple — despite its latest OMAP CPUs powering tablets like the Nook HD and Kindle Fire. We’re scratching our heads as to why a major player would drop such a strong position like this, but perhaps they know something that we don’t.

Both Apple and Google have reasons to break out the champagne in the wake of ComScore’s latest market share figures. Android is still sitting prettier than ever and just reached a new high of 52.2 percent for US smartphone share as of this past July, no doubt in part through at least a few Galaxy S III sales. Not that Apple is worrying about its US stake just yet, as the iPhone just passed the one-third mark to hit 33.4 percent — it gained share faster than Android in the space of the preceding three months. We don’t have much good news elsewhere, though, as the BlackBerry lost its hold on two-digit market share at the same time as Windows and Symbian continued to cede ground.

As for the overall cellphone space? The familiar pecking order of Samsung, LG, Apple, Motorola and HTC remains intact, although only Apple and HTC gained any traction with their respective 16.3 percent and 6.4 percent slices of the pie. LG has dropped quickly enough that it’s now within Apple’s crosshairs at 18.4 percent. As significant as the shifts can be, we’re most interested in what happens two months down the line, when ComScore can report September share: a certain phone’s launch is likely to skew the numbers, regardless of what HTC and Moto rola bring to the table. Just be advised that US market share isn’t everything.

ARM isn’t content with dominating the mobile space. It’s been by the far the most vocal about an Internet of Things where everything is connected — and to make that happen, it just established an industry forum in the UK that it hopes will establish common ground for all those internet-linked light bulbs, refridgerators and thermostats. Home energy firm Alertme, cloud-aware sensing outfit AquaMW, lighting maker EnLight and white space wireless guru Neul will start meeting with ARM from August 24th onwards to hash out our automated, eco-friendly future. There’s a certain urgency in this for the chip designer: it expects 50 billion devices on the grid by 2020. With IDC estimating a billion new connected devices just in 2011, the clock on that connected device transition is ticking very loudly.

If you’ve been looking to get that web project off the ground but despise the idea of coding it, Adobe’s recently announced web design tool has just landed. Muse, the program that allows you to design websites without having to get your hands dirty with HTML5 is now available. The kit behaves more like a layout program (like InDesign) instead of a web publishing / programming tool, allowing those who are more design-minded to feel right at home. As you might expect, the software is available with an annual $49.99 per month Creative Cloud subscription alongside CS6 heavyweights like Photoshop and Illustrator. If Muse is all you’re after, you can snag it alone for a $24.99 month-to-month fee or $14.99 for a twelve-month commitment. Need to see it in action before you open your wallet? No worries. Hit the coverage link below for a look at what the application can do.

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.